backing

it was easy to see the path forward
when the kids were around

not only was it fun to hang out and do stuff
there was such clarity of meaning
in giving what i never got

-----

now they are off
on the next leg of their long journey

and i am back to reckoning
with a lifelong backlog of disorientation

how do i make decisions:
self-actualize and have a guiding purpose
but risk crumbling from overwhelming commitments?

follow support and a sense of community
but have to uproot from here already?

return to comfort and spaciousness
but perhaps disappointment?

-----

all my life
all my relationships
have hinged upon this

attempting to maintain some resource-fullness
amidst intimate demands and money trades
none of which have never seemed fair to me

and yet the alternatives
chosen or not
would usually turn out worse

comfortable people offer comfortable help
that never means much

they can't understand the push-pull
of playing a violin for fun
after eight hours of tearing boxes open
and stuffing hands of cans into thin shelf-spaces

-----

at least the kids know
they have someone in their corner
simply as a condition of their existence

and some serious backing
as they journey forth into this world

sea change

wow i just read two lovely inspiring posts from fellow bloggers back in NM, wish i could offer smiilar celebrations of life

am rather stuck in the muck of life in a city of 1.56 million people bordered on the south by another 1.5 million in Tijuana, and on the north by another 4 million in LA, which is actually 9 million if you are talking LA county

i understand over 90% of the water is imported here, and the largest percentage of one's energy bill is due to having to pump water from the Colorado River up a serious incline over mountains to SD

today i will head up to Encinitas to see if i can sell myself on the idea of staying in the area, it is a nicer town than OB, and the musicians i meet seem to be consistently up that way, it's about the same commute to work as i have now

but really i am thinking a lot about how much happier i was in NM, even honestly acknowledging my frustrations there too, and the possibility of getting back there is quite appealing, although not without embarassment

since the kids took off, i just have not found much reason to be here, and a lot of reasons not to be, guess that's enough for now

except to say it is a pleasure to read those NM blogs, i think back there i kept thinking i was missing something of the american dream, of some self-actualizing career path or wealth or maybe a different quality of relationship

but what i find is that there is actually much more happiness, much more self-expression, amidst the sometimes humbling limitations of life with less money, less goods and less water, in the spaciousness of the high desert

and these blogs you write speak to this, they have a quality of light that simply would not be found in anything i can see coming out of the San Diego experience

to be continued...

hey

ah the finale of a full work week, with but one day off--a sunday at least, before returning to the 4 am shelf stocking for three more turns of the diurnal dial

a luxurious hour at the library computer, for journaling to whoever may be out there and my own head, as my home computer has followed in the dead steps of my tape recorder, guess i was getting sick of the i-tunes anyway, good thing i kept hard copies of david byrne and the like

rear bike tire is flat, but i have two functioning cars, which is not necessarily a good thing, since the registration on the old one expires in a week and i haven't sold it yet, the complexity of selling a car across state lines baffles my little brain, especially since it won't pass the smog test, which means i'm either going to 1) sell it to some sketchy guy for a few hundred to take it to old mexico with my plates on it which is disturbing, 2) bring it to the junkyard for probably 50 to 100, or 3) try to reregister with new mexico, hold on to it to the chagrin of all my neighbors for another couple months, drive it back to santa fe when i visit, and sell it there during my vacation

having some sweet dreams, with some old friends vividly present, they seem to be teaching me that we are all about 2/3 made up of unique expressions of divine love and beauty, and 1/3 each fallible in our own unique ways as well

this maybe my way of processing the horrendous trip to l a i took with my only (probably former) friend in town, which was so stressful and stupid i can't even say, but as has been the wont of my 1/3, let's just say i didn't handle the stress all that well

there must be some divine reason for our failings, some purpose to this temper of mine, but for now i am simply working with the how rather than why of dealing with it, and what i find is that if i allow myself a little more machismo to find room in this oversensitive persona, that pissed-offness is somehow better integrated

work's okay, the boss is better than my first santa fe boss, but not as cool as my boss in burque, i still long to do something else, so i have been asking, and received a dream last night with a very clear image of an upstanding community member even my dad was excited about: a musical priest, an intriguing idea that may just need a bit of adaptation

i am playing in the meanwhile with a cajun accordionist, so learning one of the genres i have been jonesing for, and looking at some nice fiddles in the local shop, and trying to determine my cash flow, including my last paycheck somehow being on hold at the bank, i also fancy the supposedly junk fiddle on the wall at the overpriced cajun restaurant we play at, and am trying to find the right approach to buying it from the owner, because it looks like its got some stories to tell

there are several other bands looking for a fiddler, but i am just trying to hold it all together right now, so we'll see how things pan out, thinking about medicating again, or whatever the appropriate word is, to determine a course through this and to remember how to enjoy people again, but then where do the dreams go, for now i just drink a little too much beer by myself

i noticed yesterday i really wondered for the first time about returning to the ease of new mexico, the relative fun of my old job, quiet of old neighborhood perhaps, the space in general to think, free of all this insane traffic and materialism and bureaucracy and 1.6 million people not including l a (or tijuana for that matter), and i miss friends, and some of the sweeter music options up in priestly santa fe

SUPPORT

this is my 400th post
probably a quarter at most have made the cut to public presentation
and you think i don't edit

celebrating a bit of transformational light coming through
some strong dreams returning to remind me
i have an inner growth process going on

despite the seeming meaninglessness of aging
without family or self-realized livelihood
or changing the world very much

---

then locked my keys in my car at work at 4 am
but instead of hating myself all day
brought the anger into lots of productivity

then humorously asked for assistance at huddle
leading to an unexpected AAA call and key rescue
from the one guy who might work harder than me

and a sense of connection
that might not have happened
if i didn't fuck up in the first place

---

turns out he had gotten a wake up call this morning
from an overzealous fulltimer
who misread the schedule and thought he was late

anyway i bought him a paulaner (mini) party keg
fresh from munich by way of the morning truck
we had unloaded

with an aggressive sort
of unspoken

camaraderie

weather report

might as well be in olympia
as cloudy and cool as it's been
not only the past week
but most of the two months i've been here

while it hasn't actually rained significantly
even once since i arrived
there have been about four days
of drizzly mist

which is enough for my bike
to be generating significant rust
good thing i'm selling the old car soon
before it crumbles into oxidized shards

old car

bro-in-law left his wheels to use for a year

it's the berlin airlift around here today
for some reason planes every five minutes
although as low as they are you can't see them
for the cloud cover is even lower

it's so chilly
two families have the beach entirely to themselves
aside from the smaller than usual flock
of black-suited surfhounds



the grey-brown sticky marshmallow residue
is all but gone from the streets

thanks to volunteer cleanup efforts
following the annual OB july 4th tradition
of public marshmallow fights
.

i felt my first earthquake yesterday around 5 pm
(although i've been told i've been in a couple more)
a 5.4 centered somewhere up the coast
it felt like a big truck was rumbling by

i knew pretty quick what was going on
was very curious if it was going to pass after a few seconds
or if my life was suddenly going to get immensely more dramatic
what a weird feeling
it passed
.

i'm still not sold on san diego
so i dither getting my new license and stuff
but today's a better day after a crappy week
as i continue to detox

finding the return of my sympathetic nervous system function
most welcome
.

got another decent review and raise at work yesterday
which i guess means a greater likelihood of staying at the job
especially since i've got nothing else going on
.

this week's self-improvement goal
is to start taking up more space
less self-consciously

and at least
that's a
start

the fourth (long)

recently i wrote to a friend how less triggered i felt this year about independence day patriotism, which turned out to be completely untrue

i don't know about your town, but here in the city with the largest military presence in the universe, i find myself amidst a merciless three-day weekend of idiots with flags flying out their asses...and since when did the monday after become part of the effing program?

it's particularly disorienting after several years of "interdependence" day kickball parties with the nonviolent communication community of albuquerque, in friends' huge north valley backyard celebrating the interconnectedness of things--since sold, as they moved to maui

instead i find myself listening to the padres game on the radio, filled with "my god this really is the best country on the planet, always has been always will be, amen" crap (and i'm not exaggerating)...i suppose i can be thankful at least i did not have to see the padres camo uniform tops, in tribute to all the local military folks--who get honored at the start of every public event (including the shamu show at seaworld last month), standing to the crowd's appreciative applause

now i wouldn't mind this so much, if there were a little balance to it, like how about every other day we have all the peaceworkers in the stands rise to the applause of the crowd?

i wasn't the only one moaning over the patriotic music we had to listen to through my entire TJ shift sunday, but i was the only one asking why did so much of it have to do with world war two, over hill over dale, the ultimate sacrifice of those defending all that freedom stands for...maybe it's because people don't even call it independence day anymore, it's just another day for waving flags while spouting the appropriate greeting to one's fellow wealthy white folks: "happy fourth!"

do tell me why does every other holiday have to be a glorification of war: memorial day, independence day, veterans day, flag day, there's probably another one in there, oh yeah the superbowl--all multimedia advertisements extolling the glory of joining the military

is it because all the other holidays extol the glory of a supreme religion, the best most righteous truest faith that has ever been on the planet, also rooted in the glory of violence, only this time on the receiving end...how did we get so steeped in all this insanity?

i was really willing to participate in TJ dress-up day, even offered a bit of costume wrapping a flag around myself as a sarong, which was deemed disrespectful and removed...okay fine, it didn't bother me until the first mate came in the next day and wore the very same flag as a superman-type cape over his back...i guess it's okay to wear a flag after all, so long as its done by a tall square-jawed man, in power, in an acceptably mythically-masculine way, (tantric transformational mythos, gender ambiguity, and celebration of the chakras closer to the Earth all be damned)

if further proof were needed that i don't belong here, perhaps it was the brief conversation the day before with a customer with whom i was celebrating germany's lopsided soccer victory over argentina, until he leaned in like a comrade-in-confidence, expressing his clarity that the reason the Latinos lost is their "feminine emotionality", a reactive weakness of character which eliminated any chance of recovery from an early goal

now i could be offended by this as an oft-emotional italian (yes believe it or not we are also latin); or as a german whose people learned only through a couple generations of utter ruin, genocidal violence, and shame the ultimate results of racism; or as a gender-equal progressive realizing the comment was not only racist but sexist; or a host of other ways

but i was more curious, as words from my father from a childhood pep talk returned to me, offering encouragement so many years ago that i could succeed because, "number one, you're white, number two, you're male..." and i forget the rest of what he said because even as a kid my mind froze with rage at the stupidity of what he was saying

i have since realized dad never meant to dis other people, he was trying to point out a neutral observation of society i am just coming to grasp, as i bump up against it here again in san diego, which is perhaps even more disturbing, about the nature of privilege...that it is not about having greater opportunity as a supposedly white man, nor about having fewer hurdles to overcome in succeeding, but rather something more subtle

it seems to be about an invisible social contract that clean-cut white men are allowed to take up more social space than others, and to literally take more resources for themselves than others, before others are allowed to notice or protest...thus more easily fulfilling the masculine role of resource-provision for attractive mates who agree to not protest the stipulations of the social contract, provided they receive apportioned benefits of the additional space consumed...and when taken to a global lens, explains just what it means to be "the greatest nation on Earth", as pronounced by the assuredly clean-cut white men on the radio

that is why a loud, drunken, aggressive pack of white frat boys can walk down the street harassing women, and face almost no threat of sanction (they are just "sowing their oats"), while a similar group of blacks or latinos, or hippies for that matter, would face the serious chance of getting beaten up or arrested at least

i could go on, but will close saying as a german-american whose mothers' society and culture was utterly destroyed by it, i have instinctively rejected the inherent violence of the entire racist, sexist paradigm since as far back as i can remember...and on some level have realized the connection between this and my lack of wealth acquisition

but only in browsing a self-help book in which the woman author wrote that what she valued most in a man was "masculinity" did i begin to realize the essential accepted definition of it, and how it relates to the bigger picture: someone who knows what they want and are willing (without hesitation, self-inquiry, or consideration of consequences) to go get it/do it/make it happen... the ultimate test of such masculinity is that of an effective soldier, simultaneously willing to die and to kill without question, the latter portion of which is not discussed in those "ultimate sacrifice" tributes

and which also ties in with the national glorification of the value of freedom: no one is going to get in your way unless there is demonstrable proof that what you are doing will cause immense (and undeserved) harm to others, so as long as you diminish awareness of such effects you're good to go, since (social science being ever inexact) they can never be proven until after the fact anyway, especially amidst a complex world of global political economics... thus explaining how such absolute disasters could occur like the current eight-year invasion of the middle east costing millions of lives over a lie, the destruction of the ecosystem of the gulf of mexico, the impoverishment of the entire third world, and also this incisive article (thank heaven someone else notices things once in a while): http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-how-goldman-gambled-on-starvation-2016088.html

hence revealing the distinct possibility that it is precisely the rejection of this masculine identity, swathed in a cape of freedom casting such a long shadow of violence in its wake, which has most clearly defined the parameters of the entirety of my personal life

MEETING CHICO

Today I offer a visual exercise involving a new acquaintance of mine, just over the back fence. I am wondering if you can spot his well-camouflaged tail-feathers:


I never realized until taking these photos that the markings on these birds are perfectly suited to hiding amidst subtropical yellow-green leaves, particularly those found amidst lemon and grapefruit trees. Can you see his head? (Hint: he ducks down whenever a low-flying plane goes overhead.)



A distance shot, which if he weren't so well-centered, would still leave him pretty well-hidden to the eye. Trust me, I missed several shots!


It's Chico!


At least I believe that is his formal name--he also goes by Amoricita, and I suspect other "pet" names. The photo is a little blurry, because he tended to hide every time I pointed the camera at him (with a humorous "ducking" sound--something like "whoops"). And between trying to find him in the green, and him moving down his perch, I rushed the shot.

A clearer shot of the neighbor: what a beauty, eh?

HOOD IN THE NEWS

Perhaps including the awkward title, this article from the weekly San Diego Reader definitely speaks to the zeitgeist of this neighborhood--mp

So Much Things to Say

On the afternoon of June 23, protesters clashed on Newport Avenue, attracting several news crews and police. The demonstration, originally intended as a peaceful picketing/petitioning event organized by Frank Gormlie of the OB Rag community blog, descended into chaos, much to the bemusement of beachgoers and attendees of the weekly farmers’ market.

The picket signs from Gormlie’s group targeted the Black, one of San Diego’s longest-standing head shops. Protesters encouraged a general boycott due to the store’s selling of stickers that read, “Welcome to Ocean Beach, Please Don’t Feed Our Bums.” The statement is seen by some as an insensitive attack on the neighborhood’s homeless population. Others consider the stickers a tongue-in-cheek joke. Some people feel it expresses a valid sentiment of outrage over the behavior of some members of the homeless population who have been accused of aggressive and violent panhandling techniques.

Petitions were circulated in an effort to get the stickers removed from shelves. (Hats and T-shirts with the same message have reportedly sold out.) In a conversation captured last week by a local news camera, a representative of the store said it would consider removal of the items if presented with “hundreds” of signatures on such a petition.

Counter-protestors held signs supporting the Black as a local business and admonishing Gormlie for having an opinion about Ocean Beach. (Though he was a longtime resident of O.B., Gormlie reportedly resides in Lemon Grove.) The counter-protestors also called for the dismantling of Gormlie’s OB Rag website.

Other signs, such as, “Go Home Trolls” and “Bums Off My Beach,” were carried by children and teens attending the event with parents. Other people quickly fashioned nonsensical signs in order to join the spectacle — one person waved a sign demanding that drivers “Use Your Turn Signals!”

A man who waved a sign proclaiming “Everybody Sucks But Me,” said, “I just want to be on the news,” then displayed another sticker with a joke about sex and declared it much more offensive and therefore more worthy of a protest.

By Dave Rice, published Thursday, June 24, 2010